I’m a computer repair technician, and one issue I have all the time with my customers is, the famous, ‘a virus hijacked my computer and those precious pictures are inside’. Yeah, the prom, the honeymoon, or the newborn pictures are usually held without ransom. Most of the time we are dealing with malware of some sort that affects the Windows operating system files, but leaves the data intact. So, before I repair the computer, I rescue the pictures, and any other file they might value. However, not all repair technicians do this, most allege that the files are corrupted, which might be the case, but usually it really means they are too busy to rescue anything, don’t know how to do it, or will not do it unless paid big cash.

For one own’s sakes, the best thing to do is backing up the data before the computer gets infected, or the hard drive fails. For pictures I recommend backing up the original files into data discs, but for faster everyday files backups (music, movies, games, software etc.) is better to use an external hard drive.

The Western Digital My Passport 2 TB is an awesome way to carry large amounts of data in a tiny container, that is always available and secure. I love its dimensions, both physically and in bytes.

Also, the truly fast data transfers done with the USB 3.0 interface save time every day. Speaking of the USB connector, another great feature is that only requires a single USB port for power, while many external hard drives and enclosures, with form factor 2.5″, require two USB ports.

This drive is great not only to keep multimedia files, but also for storing documents in digital form, because it saves space. Besides, in case of an emergency it’s faster to grab it then a folder. I’ve been doing backups using both hard drives and discs, and it has been of great help throughout the years. For example, the last time I moved, the new school district wanted my daughter first vaccines’ records. I knew I have the original card somewhere in a box, but I needed it fast. Then I remembered I scanned the card years ago, and that print-scanned image, which was storage in my daughter’s digital folder, inside my external hard drive, saved me hours of search and quickened her registering process at the new school.

About the WD SmartWare software offered by the manufacturer, I hesitated before going for it, because in the past WD back up software didn’t work well for me. However, when one is dealing with such a big amount of data, doing it manually is a pain, and the alternative of using the backup and restore features included in Microsoft Windows 7, is something I would only do for a complete system image, not for the everyday backup. So, I installed the WD SmartWare software and so far, it’s performing well, it does require time and attention to learn its functionality though. If you decide not to use the WD SmartWare, you can still use the hard drive right out of the box, like any other external hard drive.

Besides reading the user’s manual, I strongly suggest that before plugging in the drive into your computer, you go to the Western Digital My Passport’s support page, and read how to use it.

Because there are a few details to know before starting backing up your data. Among these topics, How to install WD SmartWare from the external drives, How to create a category backup using WD SmartWare, How to backup specific files and folders using WD SmartWare, How to retrieve a backup using WD SmartWare, Setting up security to lock or unlock a WD external drive with WD SmartWare, (videos are provided in some of these), and How to partition and format a WD drive on Windows (7, Vista, XP) and Mac OSX etc., etc.

I can’t post links here, but one can do a search for WD Support / Downloads / My Passport and will find the page where a variety of software that works with the Western Digital My Passport 2 TB, can be downloaded for free.

However, the most important fact of reading Western Digital’s support information for this drive, is to learn how to use it ‘before’ entrusting your valuable data to it. Specially, if you choose to install the WD SmartWare software.

There are very important steps everybody should know while setting up these drives, so it’s clearly stated on the Western Digital’s support pages.

For example, while installing the software, it will ask if you want to apply any security (password & encryption) to the drive. Before setting up the password you must check an, I understand box, certifying that you understood that if you forget the password, the data is unrecoverable. I repeat, and excuse the capitals, but this is crucial, IF YOU FORGET THE PASSWORD, THE DATA IS UNRECOVERABLE.

Since there is no way to retrieve your password if you forget it, please write that password in a secure available location. If you want, it’s possible to change your security…

This is my first experience with a Western Digital hard drive. I purchased the 1 TB Passport drive as opposed to others mainly because CNET awarded its Editors’ Choice for the 2 TB model ( which was not available for sale when I placed my order). I am currently using the WD SmartWare (version 1.5.4.5) that comes with loaded the device.

Pros:Smart form-factor. Very small and sleek for a 1TB drive.USB powered ( just plug it into your USB port). No need for a power cable or bulky ac adapter. Makes for true portability.Impressive USB 2.0 speed during my initial back up of 131 GBs worth of files/content.Automatic file backup featureOne USB cable( supplied)supports both 3.0 and 2.0.Surprisingly quiet and runs fairly cool too.Excellent customer support. I called twice and spoke to well trained/professional technicians.

Cons:WD Smartware software. Surprisingly so-so for this cool little device. Not as intuitive or slick as I had expected or read about. (Am wondering if I would be better off deleting the Smartware software altogether.)This version of Smartware is not very flexible and doesn’t include a full system backup( system image)feature. I had to install another application to create a system image ( Luckily WD provides a free copy of an application called Acronis for its customers–however I had to call customer service to learn about this application and be told where to find it on their support page.Automatic backup feature only works while your system is idle.

Based on my overall user experience with this device to date ( only a few days) I am somewhere between a 3.5 and 4.0 rating. If however portability with incredible amounts of storage capacity ( the next model goes up to 2Tbs !)in a pocket size device is your main priority–then I don’t think there is anything else currently on the market that beats this device in that regard.

I exercised this little drive pretty hard and it performed. Here is what I did:

I used my Apple iMac to test the drive. This computer only offers USB 2.0, so that is what I used. I used this drive as a Time Machine backup device, with data encryption. Unless you are an Apple user, that won’t mean much to you. But this is relevant to any customer: Using the drive for the first time kept it writing, without interruption, for 48 hours straight. Apple’s software wrote data to every available spot on the disk drive. When you have 2 terabytes of spots to write, it takes about two days. I kept the drive connected for another 12 hours too. During that time, the Time Machine software wrote a modest amount of data to the drive, once per hour.

No problems! I also tested the physical cable connection of this drive. This is a particular area of concern to me, because I know of several portable disk drives that have faulty connectors, which renders the entire drive useless. One of these faulty drives was a Western Digital 1 terabyte drive. However, this particular drive was great! I used the USB 3.0 cable that ships with the drive. With my finger, I tapped the cable end, near the disk drive. I (gently) picked up the drive and dropped it about half an inch. I did all this while the disk drive was busy writing data. No problem! These little drives can also accept a micro USB 2.0 cable, and I repeated these tests using just such a cable. Again, no problem.

There are not very many 2 terabyte drives of this size on the market. It is therefore not surprising that you will pay a bit of a premium for this one, where the premium is measured in dollars per megabyte. But this premium is not unreasonable. I must say, I am really impressed by this drive. So many bytes, yet so small!

I have several other portable drives that I can compare to this one. For appearance and apparent quality, I like the Toshibas best. Second place goes to Buffalo Technology. The Western Digital drives look just a bit too plasticky to my eyes. I was concerned that all that plastic might cause the drive to overheat and fail. But I did run it for two and a half days, and it never got more than slightly warm. Again, I am really impressed.

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